What is the meaning of Juramidam? (Juramidã)

There are several different understandings of Juramidam.

The origin of Juramidam

.Juramidam originates within the Santo Daime.

Juramidam as a title given to Mestre Irineu

Juramidam is the title given to Mestre Irineu.

This is the primary understanding that is asserted by most traditional Daime groups.

The title is given to Mestre Irineu himself, and he understood to be synonymous with the term.

It is also asserted by sources such as websites such as “A Familia Juramidam”.

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This is also the position that is insisted upon by Luis Mendez and the Fortaleza line. It would also imply that all of the hymns in the line of Padrinho Sebastião (that are also sung in their community) are making reference of Mestre Irineu directly every single time “Mestre” or “Juramidam” is referenced. This is limiting, and even the most traditional Daimistas do not necessarily believe this.

Question – how did Mestre Irineu close the works? Did he say himself “nosso chefe imperio Juramidam” in the closing? Is this comparable to Jesus praying to God. Was he talking about himself in the third person?

Or was that added later?

Juramidam as the personification of the spirit of the Daime

Juramidam can be understood as the name of the entity which lives inside of the drink who is distinct from God himself.

When someone might say “Tonight during the work, the Daime told me [this]”, the personality which seems to communicate to us when we drink the holy beverage of Daime in a personified format can be understood to be “Juramidam” as an entity. This is asserted by some people as the understanding, however only within the line of Padrinho Sebastiao where a more flexible understanding of the term must be exercised given that they do not hold Irineu’s instructions of the work to be the total final authority.

All plants have spirits and personalities. Whether we are talking about ayahuasca, cannabis, tobacco, the maple tree, grass or even potatoes. They may speak to us at different volumes, but all have their own traits and teachings for us to absorb in the format that we can understand as a personality when we consume them. The practice of shamanic plant dietas from the Amazon are a framework that are used when people go into a period of absitinence and isolation in order to get better direct communication with the plants, and homeopathy is another great example of a practice that aims to get us to understand the subtle traits of all the different plant spirits. The combined plant forces of the jagube (ayahuasca vine) and rainha (chacruna leaf) together in the Daime form such a powerful divine union that its communication to us is very powerful and experiential to the point when nobody who drinks it could ignore the information being downloaded into their minds. It is in this medium of consuming the beverage that the personification of the plant spirit communicates with us.

Some believe this personification in the drink to be the “second coming” of the Christ, or as the personification of the holy spirit. Many people also view Mestre Irineu to be a “second coming” to deliver the experience of revelation us in the format of the Santo Daime so that we can directly behold it to gain access to the higher realms.

This is interesting because in this understanding it would not contradict the previous, being that Mestre Irineu’s existence as a method to experience the fullness of man’s nature together with the fullness of God’s nature just as Jesus did can parrallel the understanding that Irineu’s work in the astral as guided by the Queen of the Forest (see – the Luis Mendez passage above) is actually the same as the Christ itself – meaning there is no difference in Mestre Irineu being Juramidam in a non-physical form and the spirit that lives in the Daime as Juramidam as well.

Mestre Irineu delivered, through divine inspiration guided by the Queen of the Forest, the very precise recipe of Daime, the instructions for how to brew it, how to conduct the format of the works and specific guidelines around how to consume the holy beverage so that it can fill us with love and deep spiritual understanding of the world.

In that regard, the experience of us drinking Daime and interacting with it experientially is one in the same with Mestre Irineu (or that might only be true if we are drinking the Daime according to his recipe and format of the work as he described).

Juramidam in the hymns of Santo Daime

Mestre Irineu’s hymn “Estou Aqui” (Cruzeiro #111)

This hymn is the only reference in Mestre Irineu’s hinario to him using “Juramidam” at all.

Aqui findei
Faço a minha narração
Para sempre se lembrarem
Do Velho Juramidam

This passage …

Antonio Gomes’ hymn “O General Juramidam” (O Amor Divino #13)

O General Juramidam
Os seus trabalhos é no astral

Entra no reino de Deus
Quem tem força Divinal

Padrinho Sebastião’s hymn “Estou Aqui” (O Justiceiro #2)

Estou aqui
Que o Mestre me mandou
Eu vou citar o nome
O Mestre é Juramidam

This stanza affirms the position as Juramidam to be the Master.

This could be understood in two ways:

1. The “Master Juramidam” is literally “Master Irineu”
2. The “Master Juramidam” is an entity who is the instructor of the Santo Daime doctrine and disseminated the instructions for us to follow first through Mestre Irineu. Juramidam is the one who spoke through the companions and followers of Mestre Irineu as they received their hinarios, and all the way up to today “Master Juramidam” continues to instruct each and every single one of us when we drink the Daime.

Mestre Irineu did not order Sebastião to come to the Daime, which gives credence to the idea that even Padrinho Sebastião is referencing the second point.

This is a very interesting hymn as well because the context in which it was received, in that it was Padrinho Sebastião’s 2nd hymn, and received sometime around 1965 when he was working directly with Mestre Irineu in the Alto Santo community as it neared its final stage towards the end of Mestre’s life. It also starts with the exact same words of Mestre’s “Estou Aqui”.

To clarify, this is not a matter that has a divide in understanding in different lines of the doctrine of Santo Daime, but rather retains an ambiguous and non-catechismic understanding all throughout all lines.

Padrinho Sebastião’s hymn “Somos Midam” (Nova Jerusalem #18)

Here is a recording of the Hymn #18 from Nova Jerusalém by Padrinho Sebastião titled “Somos Midam”. The hymn is offered to Marizilda and we include a relevant stanza right below.

Minhas irmãs meu nome é este
Aqui eu vou declarar
Meu Pai se chama Jura
E nós todos somos Midam

The line translates approximately to: “My Father is called Jura and we are all Midam“. In Portuguese, “jura” means an “oath”. This could be interpreted in many ways, such as Juramidam being completed as our embodiment of a divine oath to God the Father in our actions – either particularly in the Daime or in all aspects of life. This line and understanding might take us in a completely different direction and may better be regarded as an extention of the meaning in a poetic manner rather than something to be an absolute way to define the term.

Spelling dispute: Juramidam vs Juramidã

In Brazilian Portuguese when a word ends in “m”, you would never actually pronounce that sound as an “m”. Depending on the context the sound produced for “-am” could the approximated to “-unh” or “-ung”, but a nasal sound that is not found in English. You are not closing your lips to make a typical “mmmm” sound.

Apparently, according to the standards of the Portuguese language, some people assert that Juramidã should be the correct spelling according to this rule:

“No fim das palavras como falam, batem, alguém, am e em não são dígrafos, porque representam um ditongo nasal, portanto, dois fonemas.” (Novíssima Gramática da Língua Portuguesa, Domingos Paschoal Cegalla, Editora Nacional, 41ª Edição, pág. 31).

“Ô em Juramidã representa um único fonema.

Other names that are given to Afro-Brazilian entities also follow this standard spelling: “Iansã”, “Nanã”, “Tupã” are three examples. In theory, one could also write their names as “Iansam”, “Nanam” and “Tupam”, however… sometimes people actually do write those names like that such as “Nanam Buruque” so this isn’t absolutely concrete set in stone one way or another.

Keep in mind that Mestre Irineu did not have basic literacy abilities, nor was he skilled with spelling and the intricacies of Portuguese grammar, so these decisions on how to spell this word come from none of his own claims.

Other words in Portuguese also follow this pattern for the nasal sound, such as “irmã”, “talismã”, “afã”, and “anã”.

Traditional Daime centers typically use the spelling of “Juramidã” while centers in the line of Padrinho Sebastião use “Juramidam”.

Look at the following excerpt from 2 different copies of Mestre Irineu hymn 111 “Estou Aqui”, which contains the only reference to “Juramidam” in the entire hinario of O Cruzeiro.

You can see the two different spellings here, although they do have identical pronounciation.

You shouldn’t really worry too much about the spelling difference.